A pair of recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings have cleared the way for the deportation of hundreds of thousands of immigrants in the nation legally.
The justices agreed May 30 to pause a lower court order preventing Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem from immediately terminating humanitarian parole programs for about 500,000 noncitizen Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans while litigation continues.
The ruling immediately stripped program beneficiaries of parole and work authorizations amid the Trump administration’s ongoing deportation campaign against unauthorized immigrants. The ruling came in response to an administration request for urgent action to block U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani’s April 14 order stopping closure of the parole program without a case-by-case analysis of individual immigrants’ situations.
Karen Tumlin
“The Supreme Court has effectively greenlit deportation orders for an estimated half a million people, the largest such de-legalization in the modern era,” said Karen Tumlin, director of the Justice Action Center, one of two human rights groups to file Svitlana Doe v. Noem. “Today’s decision beats the record they set just two weeks ago when they allowed the termination of TPS for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans living in the U.S.”
In that order handed down May 19, justices allowed the administration to proceed with the termination of Temporary Protected Status for 350,000 Venezuelan immigrants, a move being challenged in National TPS Alliance v. Noem.
That decision, which also blocked a lower court ruling, condones Noem’s lawless actions, said Emi MacLean, attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Northern California.
Emi MacLean
“The court also eviscerated statutory protections designed to limit executive discretion and politicized decision making about blanket humanitarian relief. We are evaluating our options and remain committed to defending the rights of individuals affected by this administration’s illegal actions,” she said.
The Supreme Court’s latest order was handed down without explanation and did not include a vote tally, but it did include a dissent by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
The court’s approach in Svitlana v. Noem required little relevant proof from the administration and opens the way for the deportation of immigrants who may yet win their court cases, Jackson said.
“Instead, the court allows the government to do what it wants to do regardless, rendering constraints of law irrelevant and unleashing devastation in the process,” she said, adding justices “plainly botched this assessment today.”
Ketanji Brown Jackson
The loss of parole status leaves hundreds of thousands of immigrants facing an “unbearable” dilemma, Jackson added.
“On the one hand, they could elect to leave the United States and, thereby, confront ‘dangers in their native countries,’ experience destructive ‘family separation,’ and possibly ‘forfeit any opportunity to obtain a remedy based on their … claims,’ as the District Court found. On the other, they could remain in the United States after parole termination and risk imminent removal at the hands of government agents, along with its serious attendant consequences.”
Either option will likely cause more harm to immigrants than the government would have suffered had parole status continued and courts reviewed the merits of individual cases, Jackson said. “At a minimum, granting the stay would facilitate needless human suffering before the courts have reached a final judgment regarding the legal arguments at issue, while denying the government’s application would not have anything close to that kind of practical impact.”
Immigrant advocates expressed outrage about the rulings and about the administration’s policies attacking immigrant families and communities.
“Once again, the Trump administration blatantly proves their disregard for the lives of those truly in need of protection by taking away their status and rendering them undocumented. We have already seen the traumatic impact on children and families afraid to even go to school, church or work,” said Guerline Jozef, executive director of Haitian Bridge Alliance.
“This population has done everything the federal government has asked of them and received a rescinded promise from the U.S. government in return.”
“This population has done everything the federal government has asked of them and received a rescinded promise from the U.S. government in return. This will be tremendously devastating for our communities, but we are strong and resilient, and we will continue to fight for them to be treated fairly under the law.”
Todd Schulte
By siding with the administration, the Supreme Court is penalizing 500,000 immigrants who complied with all government policies and laws, said Todd Schulte, president of FWD.us, a bipartisan political action group that supports the well-being of communities and families.
“This decision will have devastating and immediate consequences and is part of a broader attempt by the executive branch to justify further immigration enforcement crackdowns against families across the country,” he said.
America’s Voice Executive Director Vanessa Cárdenas said the justices have made an already bad immigration system even worse.
“At the urging of the Trump administration, the Supreme Court has stripped legal protections from half a million individuals who followed the rules, passed background checks, and were granted permission to live and work in the United States. This shameful decision hands a blank check to an administration hell-bent on punishing immigrant communities — regardless of the damage it does to our nation’s values, economy, or basic human decency.”
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